faith

This post contains a few links that are affiliates and many links that are not. In the midst of a full summer, I’m pausing on purpose to list some of my favorite things so far.

It happened again. I woke up this morning with a compulsion to write on the blog again like it’s 2009. This is not the first time that has happened. If there’s one thing I’ve learned after writing four books and over twelve years of blog posts it’s when you feel the compulsion to write something down, don’t fight it.

Just follow it.

The odd (and annoying) thing is, I don’t necessarily have anything worthwhile to share today which goes against everything I teach, believe, and basically live by. Have nothing to say? Wait. Listen. Stop wasting all the breath and words.

But something else I’m learning, and this is faint and small and let me assure you I’m giving it the side-eye, is maybe there’s still a place to shoot the breeze with each other and maybe it’s okay to do it online sometimes, too.

In the spirit of late June, here are ten things I helping me sabbath this summer even though probably these things are more like “taking small breaks” than sabbath, but I’m learning the difference and showing myself grace.

1. Looking through old photos.

When my schedule is full as it is right now, I take less photos. This might seem a strange thing to note, but taking simple photos brings me life. (I’m talking photos from my phone you guys, this is not a fancy thing I’m doing.)

Though I haven’t been taking as many this summer, I have been scrolling through some from summers past. These are from when John and I went to Italy in 2016 for the Tuscany Writer’s Retreat.

I saw someone’s before and after workout photos on Instagram recently and went temporarily insane and signed up for a free workout ebook regimen online, forgetting everything I’ve learned about myself.

I love yoga, zumba, and walking. Why do I, now and then, forget what I love and think I want to be Jillian Michaels real quick instead?

The work isn’t in finding a new workout routine so I can tone myself, the work is in remembering who I already am and doing the next right thing.

This morning, that meant a 15 minute yoga practice in my PJs before I took a shower.

3. Evening drives.

I did not understand the evening drive when I was a kid. Mom and Dad would ask me after dinner, Do you want to go for a ride?

I’d say, Where are you going?

And they’d be all, For a ride.

And I’d be, Yeah but where to?

And they’d be, For a ride.

And I’d roll my eyes and say no.

Now I realize they were probably glad for the time alone together on those warm, Indiana summer evenings, windows down, radio off. Boring bliss.

4. Planning to co-lead my first trip.

Over a year ago, my friend Tsh Oxenreider floated a crazy idea by me: I’m thinking of leading a trip to London next summer. Any interest in co-leading it with me?

5. Arugula.

All the arugula I’ve had this summer has been right on time. I eat it straight out of the bag like potato chips and I can’t quit. For salad inspiration, listen to The Lazy Genius Makes A Salad.

6. Making a list of books I want to read when grad school is over.

I still have 10 months left of school which means my reading queue is straight up full and assigned until then. But I’ve been making a list (and checking it twice) of the books I want to read after I graduate and the list is long and lovely, let me assure you.

I would list them here now, but I’m working on a book post for you because I have a lot of other things to do so writing on the blog has become Very Important And Exciting.

7. Bocce ball.

This caveman like game was a hit at the beach a few weeks ago and we just can’t quit it. We play in the front yard, the cul-de-sac grass, the neighbor’s front yard, basically any kind of yard. I don’t have one solitary photo of it, but if you don’t have a set here’s one on Amazon a lot like the one we have. This one has a measuring rope which we do not have but I think is remarkable and much more accurate than the janky way we have been doing it.

8. The shade of pink in my guest room.

We have a tiny guest room in the back of our house and it’s where I do any video stuff for my work or for school. Oprah used to say a room should “rise up to meet you” when you walk into it, and when this room is clean that’s the feeling I get.

If I have to work in summer, at least there’s pink.

Here’s a list of stuff in this photo that you might ask me about listed from most helpful to least helpful.

9. Palomino pencils.

I bought one of these pencils while we were in California and now I can’t read my school books without it. Maybe it’s the flat eraser? I don’t know, it just feels right in my hand.

10. The east coast beach.

It’s gentle and powerful and I learn something new every time I stand on this southern, east coast beach. What a gift to live a few hours away.

Well look at that. I had the compulsion to write and I feel completely satisfied now. You’re welcome (I’m sorry?) Would love to hear what your favorite things of summer are!

If you are a human and are seeing this field, please leave it blank.

I send out a secret letter to my readers one time a month. Want to get it?

I’m all about helping you create space for your soul to breathe, starting with your inbox. Over 33,000 people trust me with their email address. I will never send spam or photos of bare feet. You have my word on this.

The internet tells us adults make over 30,000 decisions every day, but I would guess when we are in the midst of a major life transition — a job change, an engagement, a new house, a new baby, new school, injury or diagnosis, new responsibilities or even a crisis of faith — the number of new decisions goes up and the weight of the usual ones are even heavier.

If you are in a time of transition, you are a prime candidate for decision fatigue.

For anyone who needs to re-focus, to receive what this transition has to teach you, instead of running past it in excitement or running from it in fear, I give you this — A Soul Minimalist’s Guide for Starting Over.

1. Be a Beginner

When we talk about new beginnings, we usually frame the concept with phrases of hope like springtime, flowers blooming, a new love, a new start.

On a hard day, we encourage ourselves with tomorrow is a new day! Joy is going to come in the morning.

New beginnings are usually welcome. But being a beginner? Not so much.

We want our circumstances to change, to start again, to be brand new. But when they change, we often don’t give ourselves permission to be new within them.

All beginnings hold elements of both joy and heartbreak. When we enter a new beginning, we have generally also experienced some kind of ending which comes with layered emotions and experiences of grief, transition, and letting go.

And so I say all of this just to get us here: don’t be afraid to be a beginner. Be relentlessly kind to yourself.

Let yourself be a beginner and receive all the gifts beginning has to give.

2. Stop Collecting Gurus

One way I’ve discovered helps me live my life more fully is to take inventory when anxiety shows up. Rather than avoid it as I’m most prone to do, I choose instead to stop, to notice, and in this case, pay attention to the story my inbox was telling me.

When we’re confronted with starting over, it can be tempting to look outside of ourselves for confident voices to point the way for us. This isn’t a bad thing, but it can keep us from settling into ourselves and quiet enough to hear the voice of God.

Cleaning out my inbox one day, I realized I had emails from experts in all areas – online marketing, book launching, fashion, and de-cluttering. What I didn’t have was space to consider my next right thing.

It was obvious I had way too many gurus talking to me and if I wanted to get clarity, I needed to take a break from them.

3. Gather Co-Listeners

If you aren’t sure what to do next, maybe you need to gather some co-listeners.

This is different than collecting gurus. There’s something powerful about gathering people who know you well specifically for the purpose of listening, question asking, and reflection. At the very least, it will force you to do some deep thinking about the issue you’re trying to discern in this transition because you’ll want to be ready for the co-listeners questions and insights.

Knowing our Father, our friend Jesus, and the Holy Spirit who lives and dwells within us, my guess is that he isn’t so concerned with the outcome of our decision at least not in the same way we are.

But he would be delighted to know that the decision we are carrying is moving us toward community and not away from it, that it is leading us to depend on others more and not less, and that it is turning our face toward his with a posture of listening with the hopeful expectation of receiving an answer.

4. Pick What You Like

If you feel unsure in a new situation, overwhelm is usually not far behind.

When I stood in the middle of the garden center with one plant in my cart and not sure what to do next, I felt stuck and began to feel that familiar discouragement I get when confronted with a simple decision that has many options in an area where I don’t have a lot of confidence.

The discouragement barreled down fast. It was familiar, it was annoying, and it was kind of ridiculous.

What does it look like to just start or to start over, to take a next right step towards something we want even if we feel unsure? Maybe a good place to start is to simply pick what you like, then see how it grows.

“The beginning space was actually a holy space, not just a layover on my way to something better.”

–Leeana Tankersley, Begin Again

If you are a human and are seeing this field, please leave it blank.

I send out a secret letter to my readers one time a month. Want to get it?

I’m all about helping you create space for your soul to breathe, starting with your inbox. Over 33,000 people trust me with their email address. I will never send spam or photos of bare feet. You have my word on this.

Some writers write words that come off the page like two hands cupping your face, inviting you to slow, to focus, and to simply listen. Just slow and listen to this.

Hilary Yancey is one of those writers and she finally wrote a whole book. Here is a taste of her writing and then you can go put on your tennis shoes and run out to get her book. Or just go to Amazon Prime because you’re not an animal.

We were late to our eighteen-week ultrasound. Preston surprised me with a lunch date at a farm-to-table restaurant just outside Waco. I had been picking at my salad throughout, then picking at my dessert. Ever since the positive pregnancy test, ever since the scribbled note of “large baby for gestational age,” I had lived on a live wire of worry.

This ultrasound, which was the reason for the lunch, the reason for the celebrating, was full of fear. An ultrasound could declare that things hadn’t gone according to plan or it could bless us with uneventful normalcy, with everything as expected. I had worried for days that it would be the first, and as the ultrasound approached, I became convinced that something was wrong, that we would learn something terrible that Friday afternoon.

I sat sullenly at our celebration lunch, listlessly moving the lettuce around on my plate with my fork. Preston tried several times to ask me why I didn’t seem very peaceful or excited. He tried to remind me that we were seeing our child for the first time. Instead of answering his question, I picked a fight with him about the fact that we would be late right as the waitress brought over our check.

It was raining while we drove back, and I wasn’t dressed for it. My thin cotton skirt was covered in wet splotches. I pressed my hands against it, feeling my gooseflesh beneath.

We arrived and I was called back fairly quickly. Preston stood up to join me, but the nurse told him to wait, that they would “call Dad back later.” I followed the nurse back silently, holding my wallet in my hands because my skirt didn’t have any pockets. Once I was on the table, the technician started to swirl the transducer probe over my belly only to declare irritably that she couldn’t see much because my bladder was too full, and gestured to a bathroom across the narrow hallway.

I stood up and walked meekly to the bathroom. I was mad that I had been late, mad that I had tried so hard to drink the eight necessary glasses of water a day only to be told it was wrong. I am the kind of person who, upon deciding that she has just done the entire day wrong, cannot be persuaded otherwise. I had failed the morning; I had failed lunch with my husband; I had failed the ultrasound; I had failed this baby. I washed my hands and slunk back into the room.

The exam was completely silent. The technician commented only once, to express frustration that the baby moved so much that she was having trouble getting good pictures of the face. She sighed multiple times, tracing the same circles around and around, shifting in her chair. When she said that the baby was so active, I tried to smile. “That’s good, right?” She said nothing.

I continued to stare at the green and cream border on the walls. There was a large calendar just opposite the exam table, turned to the month of April. It was a calendar with platitudes written across a beautiful sunrise background, things like “Live, laugh, love” and “Every act of kindness grows the spirit and strengthens the soul,” things people put up on refurbished shiplap in their homes.

I read the words on the April graphic of a generic sunrise, or a sweetly blooming daffodil, and swallowed too loudly. I wondered if she could hear my heart beating against my bones. I wondered if she was judging me, my silence, my lack of questions or exclamations or rambunctious joy. I wondered if she had even registered my face before hunting for my child’s.

I prayed in that room, lying in that anxious horizontal position, my hands tickled by the paper they roll onto exam tables. God spoke one thing back, something I have forgotten until the writing of this book, something I proclaimed for a week or two, until the diagnosis, until the end and the beginning: “She can never tell you something about this person I do not already know.”

YOU GUYS.

I know it’s a cliff-hanger, I know. But this is an actual excerpt from Forgiving God: A Story of Faithand you need to get it right this minute so you can read her story.

Hilary Yancey loves good words, good questions, and sunny afternoons sitting on her front porch with a strong cup of tea. She and her husband, Preston, and their two children, Jack and Junia, live in Waco, Texas where Hilary is completing her Ph.D. in philosophy at Baylor University.

Her first book, Forgiving God: A Story of Faith is available wherever fine books are sold (Amazon, Barnes & Noble) – and you can hear Hilary read the audiobook, too!

P.S. After her son was born, Hilary posted this photo on her Instagram. I have never forgotten the stunning and compelling novel that her beautiful face expresses without saying a word. It is exquisite and sacred and I will never forget it.

But with the state of our soul and the pace of our lives, are we giving ourselves the room we need to make thoughtful decisions, much less ones that actually reflect who we are and what we feel called to?

We are finishing up this season of Lent and many people gave things up, the sugar, the Netflix, the small obsessions that hijack our focus and the larger ones that keep us numb and disengaged.

So in this season of giving things up, I wanted to enter the conversation with a question. What does it mean to let things go? Maybe not just for a season, maybe for good. What do we need to release?

For anyone who wants to uncover some of those things so that you can move forward in love, I give you this — A Soul Minimalist’s Guide to Letting Go.

Stop rushing clarity

For the last three years, I’ve had some ideas for a few projects. Some I’ve done and others I can’t quite move on yet. It’s not for lack of motivation or conviction that the thing ought to be done. But I’ve had this unequivocal sense that I need to wait like a hand is stretched out in front of me.

I’ve walked through all the familiar stages of new project things with this idea, the talking, the praying, brainstorming, writing down notes as ideas as they come, paying attention to the world around me and the world within me as it relates to the subject. But the progress doesn’t seem to come.

When the next steps are unclear, doubt is often the most logical conclusion. Maybe I don’t know how to hear God’s voice after all. Maybe all this is just my idea.

We can start down that road of doubt and questioning if we want to. But just because the doubts show up doesn’t meant you have to let them sit down. They won’t linger if they’re not welcome.

Stand on your head

One of the most unlikely practices that have helped me learn to release some things is by standing on my head. Not metaphorically, but actually, physically standing on my head.

I’ve been delightfully surprised at the simple lessons I’ve learned while physically practicing this inversion – but the truth is we can practice standing on our head even if we never get upside down. It’s all about perspective.

In my own personal practice of letting go this month, I’m realizing I need to let go of the version of myself who feels like she always has to be productive. Standing on my head keeps me playful, open, and light.

Remember the real art

Years ago, before the store was a store, she had a dream to create a place where they take the old, beautiful things, the wooden chairs and side tables and other broken pieces people tend to throw away, and give them new life. They wanted a place to do what they always did: make the used into art.

They had their last big mark-down sale and cleaned out the back rooms both the crannies as well as the nooks. Our community said goodbye to the little shop called Chartreuse.

I can see how that might seem like sad news, that our friends who had a dream have now closed down their shop. If you only looked from the outside, you might lose hope.

The art lives on because the true art was not the shop.

The real art isn’t a shop any more than it’s a song, a book, a painting, or a degree. The real art is something more, something deeper, something good.

When you hold your dreams with open hands, you let them breathe, grow, and have life. This can be scary because living things move, they change, and they take shapes we can’t predict or control. Instead of seeing it as a letting go, maybe instead it’s a making room. Let go of what no longer fits. Make room for something good.

Hold one thing at a time.

In my experience, a practical roadblock of doing the next thing in love is we are carrying too many things in the first place. What if we gave ourselves permission to hold just one thing at a time?

There is power in simplicity.

I am never more open to advice, to perspective, and to other people’s opinions than when I have a decision to make. I’m never more aware of my need for God, for hope, and for direction than when I have an unmade decision. I’m open, I’m ready, I’m listening for any clue as to what I should do next.

But often the clues remain within us, unheard and undiscovered. When we take the time to follow those clues we might find out things we are holding onto that we no longer need and what desires we might need to lean into and where we might need to let go?

Out of all the decisions in this world we have control over, there is definitely one whole category of our lives we can’t predict, manage, or bullet point.

No matter how organized we get, how much we plan, how prepared we are for what might come, one thing we can always count on is that the people in our life will surprise us, delight us, disappoint us, overwhelm us, or confuse us.

We can manage our time, our work, and our agendas but we cannot manage relationships. At least, not if we want them to be healthy.

How do we move forward in love? How can we discern a next right step with the people in our lives when they can be so unpredictable and. . . people-y?

For anyone who wants to remember some basic but often overlooked foundational truths about relating with people, I give you this — A Soul Minimalist’s Guide to Relationships.

Release your agenda.

Why is this one so simple and so hard!?

When one of our girls experienced a profound disappointment in her life (she was in fourth grade so gauge your imagination accordingly), I struggled as her mom to balance wanting to teach her a lesson and just wanting to be with her.

It’s true, learning is good and disappointments are an opportunity for growth. But I’ve grown weary of trying to squeeze a lesson out of everything, of always asking what God is trying to teach me in every circumstance, of seeing the world through lesson-colored glasses and forcing struggling people to do that, too.

Instead, when it comes to discerning your next right thing in relationships, releasing your agenda is a good place to start.

Let’s practice walking into the great mystery of God. Let’s practice encountering Jesus as a person and not a character. Let’s practice releasing our agenda to perform, perfect, and prioritize. Let’s live this day as a daughter first and allow the student to tag along behind.

Look for arrows, not answers.

So often, the questions we have in life that give us trouble aren’t the daily ones like what to wear, what to eat, when to mow the grass (although these can become burdensome if we’re already struggling with decision fatigue).

In my experience, the situations where I most desperately want an answer are the ones that are the hardest to find. These usually have to do with things like faith, vocation, and relationships.

My husband John and I went through a vocational transition about five years ago. No only did we not have answers, every question we asked seemed to birth more questions. What we discovered over that several year-long transition was we were looking for the wrong thing.

Rather than a specific plan, God offered us his hand and led us not to clear answers but simply back to one another. It was one of the most life-changing periods of our lives and it didn’t come from a five step agenda but from listening and looking for arrows to our next right step.

“Sometimes the circumstances at hand force us to be braver than we actually are, and so we knock on doors and ask for assistance. Sometimes not having any idea where we’re going works out better than we could possibly have imagined.” — Ann Patchett, What Now?

Come home to yourself.

As difficult as it may be to admit, sometimes it’s easier to focus on every relationship except the one I’m guaranteed to have for the rest of my living life – the one between me and myself. It doesn’t seem right since we are already so good at thinking of ourselves first, wondering what people are thinking of us, and basically being our own point of reference in all situations.

Maybe relief from selfishness won’t be found in denying ourselves the way we tend to think of it, but to finally become ourselves the way we were intended to be. Not the false, try-hard, self-referential version, but the true, free self who is created in the image of God.

The only person you’re guaranteed to be with every day of your life is you. So maybe it’s time to make some peace. You don’t have to fly apart in the midst of chaos. You can learn to sit down on the inside and be at home with yourself instead.

“It’s a wild and wonderful thing to bump into someone and realize it’s you.”

Choose connection.

When it comes to relating with people, whether it’s family or strangers, how we enter a room can mean the difference between connecting with them or comparing ourselves to them. If I walk in and immediately wonder, What are they thinking of me? then I have automatically made comparison a top priority.

Contrary to what we often say about connection and chemistry, the truth is connection doesn’t normally just happen. We have to actively choose to set aside our own insecurities and move toward people without an agenda or a measuring stick.

“If your life is a constant blur of activity, focus, and obligation, you are likely to miss critical breakthroughs because you won’t have the benefit of pacing and negative space. What’s not there will impact your life as much or more than what is.”

I do not have power sheets to offer (love those!), an innovative planner to present (though I want to create this one day), or a webinar to teach you about goal-setting (though I’ve attended at least two of those in the last year).

What I do have is time management for your soul.

Most time saving tips focus on your schedule and we need those. But that’s not why you come here.

My self-appointed job in this space is to help you create space for your soul to breathe so that you can discern your next right thing in love.

These tips might not show up on your calendar but they could help on the more invisible level of your soul.

When we are overwhelmed, it’s easy to become distracted and stuck in false starts. It’s the fast-track to decision fatigue and I want to help get you out of it.

It’s counter-intuitive, but what I often need most when I’m in a rush is to slow down. It helps me think better, discern better, and gently take just one next right step instead of tripping over twenty.

Allow me to help you slow for a few moments so that you can pay attention to what’s happening beneath the surface.

This will inform your decisions and in turn, eventually, your schedule as well.

Choose Your Absence

I’m all about being a person of presence. But we can’t be present to everything all the time.

One way to learn to cultivate presence might sound at first, counter intuitive. It’s actually by your absence.

Not your absence from people or responsibility, but absence from the things that are keeping you from your people and your responsibilities.

One thing you could choose your absence from is anything that comes your way disguised as “a great opportunity.”

For many of us the beginning of the year can be a time when we all get high on hope, searching the horizon for what might be next.

Living attentive and paying attention is one of my favorite ways to live, but I’ve discovered if I do it in the wrong order by going outward before I move inward, then I may add to the stress and distraction in my life in ways I never intended to do.

“The biggest deception of our digital age may be the lie that says we can be omni-competent, omni-informed, and omni-present. We must choose our absence, our inability, and our ignorance–and choose wisely.”

Ignore With Intention

If your schedule is already so full that you’re having a hard time even making simple decisions, you probably already recognize the fact that there are a lot of things in your schedule that fall under the column of things you can’t control.

But can we agree that your Instagram feed and your phone notifications are not included in that column?

I mention this because in my season of life right now, the anxiety triggers that cause the most frustration come mostly from a screen either a computer screen like something I read in my email inbox, or on a blog or on Facebook, a TV screen, something I see on the news, or a phone screen like instagram, voxer, or a text message.

For those of us who work online for example like I do, turning off the computer or phone completely isn’t always an option. But there are simple and practical ways to cut down on the low-grade anxiety that is showing up in your feeds and follows.

“The first step to crafting the life you want is getting rid of everything you don’t.”

Find a No Mentor

What do you do when your schedule is full and you have things waiting in the wings? How do you decide your yeses from your nos? Sometimes you can make a list and other times you can sleep on it.

But some decisions you’re too close to and can’t see the better from the best. That’s why you need a No Mentor, someone who will help you say your strong no so that you can be more available for your brave and intentional yeses.

My sister is the original No Mentor (she even coined the phrase for us) and she is a profesh. This doesn’t mean you have to get her to be your No Mentor, though. You can find someone in your own life to do that for you. And eventually, you can learn to be your own.

“May you be blessed with good friends, and learn to be a good friend to yourself, journeying to that place in your soul where there is love, warmth, and feeling. May this change you.”

Embrace Your Limits

There’s something uniquely discouraging about finally knowing what you want to do and where you feel most called only to run into a roadblock. Often these roadblocks present themselves as some kind of limitation – fatigue, heartbreak, time, money, or support.

Instead of fighting those, perhaps your next right thing is to embrace them instead. Because our limits tell us important things about ourselves.

They help us draw lines for margin.

They pave the way for vulnerability.

They show us what we aren’t able to do and that can be just as important as what we are able to do.

I could also title this post When You Have An Idea For Something And It Turns Into A Big Decision You Need To Make And No One Can Make It For You And You Aren’t Sure If You Even Need To Make It Exactly And You Wish Someone Would Just Come Over And Tell You What To Do And Make You Cookies.

But that felt like an obnoxious choice. So we’ll go with this one.

About a year ago, I drove a few miles down the road to my college Alma mater, walked into the admissions building, and took a long, deep breath.

It smelled like initiative, angst, and Y2K.

I walked up to the open desk in the center of the building, the kind Ron Swanson’s nightmares are made of, and requested a copy of my transcript.

They gave it to me, I’m happy to report, but only after I paid a way-too-long-overdue parking ticket.

And then in late December of last year (that’s 2016 – yes it’s taken me this long to talk publicly about it) I applied and was accepted into a graduate program without much fanfare.

I even forgot to tell John that I got the acceptance letter until the next day.

I shared this news with my letter readers several months ago and their kind response gave me the courage to share it here.

One normal question people ask when they find out I enrolled in grad school is ooo, why?!

It’s a normal question, one I would ask you, too, if you told me the same thing.

Why are you going back to school?

And this, my friend, is the question that kept me up at night for weeks before I made my decision.

Why would I want to do this?! I have a job, a family, a full life already. What is the actual point?!

It’s the question that begged for an answer while I tried to decide what to do next.

I didn’t have a clear plan with bullet points, a job I wanted to get that required this degree, or even the cultural expectation you have when you decide to go to college the first time because “that’s just what you do.”

At my age, going to school again is not just what you do. Unless you have a specific reason, requirement, or end game.

I talked with my spiritual director about this back when I was still in the deciding phase and she said something I haven’t forgotten (which she does every single time I’m with her.)

“Our Western minds are trained to go down the path of explaining. We think if we can understand it, then we can control it.”

It’s true, don’t you think?

I am conditioned to believe the only reason we should do things is if we know exactly why, where we are headed, and for what purpose.

No wonder we have trouble making decisions.

If we don’t have clear answers or sure-things, then taking a big step like this feels like a risk at best, a wasteful mistake at worst.

If I understand it, then I can control it.

This is what I know: I feel a call to the deeper life with Jesus and with people, in my personal life and my ministry life and my business life.

I’m not choosing a degree path because I feel like something is missing, but because finally, I can see the whole.

And what my wholeheartedness has been telling me over the past few years is that I want to learn more about spiritual formation, I want to become more fully myself, and I want to do it alongside a community of people who want that, too.

As of now, I’ve finished my first class and my second one officially ends in two weeks. It has already been life-changing.

In a little less than two years from now, I’ll have my Masters in Spiritual Formation and Leadership.

I don’t call it going back to school. You can, that’s fine. But I just don’t.

Going back sounds like I missed something the first time around, so I have to go back and find my way again.

Instead, I think of it as going forward.

I’m going forward to school and it feels just right.

But, of course, there are things to learn and the curve is steep, not the least of which include my actual school work. I’m learning how to talk about this decision with people. I’m learning how to prioritize my time all over again. I’m learning how to walk with Jesus and discern my literal next step.

I’ve been keeping this one close to my heart for the past year but it felt like time to share it in this space. When you write on a blog for nearly 12 years, stuff eventually finds its way here. It’s only natural.

Things are shifting in me and not a lot has landed yet. But this degree program is the next right thing for me for some reasons I know and some that I don’t.

If I am super honest?

One reason I’ve kept this quiet is because it feels sacred, in a way. I couldn’t bear to be part of the “women going to seminary/grad school as they get older” conversation that seems to be happening in places on the Internet.

I just want to take my next right step with Jesus and not have it be click-bait.

So there you have it. I’m figuring out how to do my job and be a mom and love John and serve at church and host a podcast and brainstorm my next book and go to school at the same time.

It’s a challenge and a lot but I have to tell you that I love it. I’ve cried and stayed up too late and gotten up way early and I’m figuring it out.

One immediate result of this should-I-or-shouldn’t-I decision making process is the podcast I started.

Because I was so worked up about making a wrong decision that it nearly paralyzed me from being able to make any decision at all.

I have released an episode every Tuesday for the last three months, but I’ve hardly written a blog post in that time.

It’s the perfect example of how our yeses come with some automatic nos.

So I’m falling in love with new things, with saying my words to you rather than writing them for a while.

This isn’t an announcement that I’m not writing anymore. I will always be writing.

Instead, this is a note to let you in on some things happening beneath the surface.

All of that, I trust, will make the writing better in time.

Meanwhile, my Mondays have looked exactly the same for the past three months: get the kids to school, head to my office, draft an episode of The Next Right Thing, record it, edit it, prepare it for posting on Tuesdays, the end.

It’s become a kind of liturgy for me, something I do with my whole body, in a way.

When I talk into the microphone, I actually feel like I’m talking to you. I move my hands way too much and have to edit out lots of extra sound because of all that movement.

But I love it, I just love it. And so I’m trying this, for now.

We’ll see what might be next.

I tell you all this because I want you to be in on it. I also tell you on the off chance you have a thing you’re carrying, too.

Maybe it’s something you’re thinking about pursuing, starting, making, finishing, or traveling to. But you don’t see the clear path, the end game, or the five year plan.

Is there something you need to go forward to, too?

Is there a path you’ve had your eye on but just aren’t quite sure?

Be gentle with yourself.

Get still.

Stop talking.

Pause the constant questioning of everyone else’s opinion.

Now hold that thing, whatever it is, in your mind.

Pay attention to your body and your soul – does it rise or does it fall?

If you receive my monthly letter, you’ve already known about this new development in my life for months now and I want to thank you again for your kind response when I shared this with you. I always share news with my letter friends first. Want to get on that list? Just add your name right here.

There was a time not so long ago when I felt embarrassed by how excited I get when I see a low, full moon. But missing the total eclipse back in August (because our town wasn’t in the Path of Totality) helped me to realize the importance of paying attention to the things in the world that poke my soul awake and to put myself in their path on purpose when I can.

I was one re-size and cut click away from cropping out the BP from this image, but at the last minute decided against it.

The full morning moon is a wonder, made even more so by the ordinary and regular things that live beneath it.

I have to remind myself sometime stop look at life with a wider angle. It all counts. It is all part of our formation – the light, the dark, and all the dim space in between.

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It was 1986 and Mom and her friend Irene took me and my sister out to the field beside our Indiana church in the middle of the night. I only remember the cold and the darkness. The comet, if I even actually saw it, was underwhelming.

But it didn’t matter. The grown ups said this was a big deal and I believed them.

I’ve been believing them ever since.

When my sister told me about the total eclipse a while back, I started to make plans to get myself into The Path of Totality because of course. We live about a three hour drive from both Columbia and Greenville, South Carolina, two cities directly in the path.

Of course I was going to drive to see this. I’ve driven for less than this.

I’ll drive out of our tree-filled neighborhood at bedtime on the night of a full moon just to catch a glimpse.

I drove around Santa Barbara in the dark every morning for four days while visiting just to see the sun rise over and over again.

When we go to the beach every summer, John and I wake up before dawn so we can drag our beach chairs through the sand and watch the sun rise up over the water, the regular sun on her regular path.

My family knows if the sun is setting or the moon is rising, it’s fair game that I might pull over to the roadside to catch a glimpse or a photo.

When the moon is blood, strawberry, full or crescent, I want to see it and am always delighted by it.

Summer and winter solstice are my twin muses, the longest day and the shortest day ushering me into reflection with their shadows and light.

When the space station flies over our cul-de-sac, we track it.

If we’re in a dark part of town, I look up to see the stars.

My blog for years was called Chatting at the Sky. Annoying, but also telling.

For a woman who so loves the sky, I’ve still never seen the Milky Way, the Northern Lights, or a total solar eclipse.

This was my chance.

But it wasn’t to be.

A weekend of travel and a Monday night school open house left little room for our family to drive six hours in one day and make it back in time. There was much conversation around this. There may have been tears on my end. I may have reverted back to being a child and stomping my feet.

I may not have. You’ll never know.

I made my precarious peace with it and on the day of the eclipse, we headed out to a local field to take in the 94 percent partial eclipse we would get in our own hometown.

Not the same, but something.

“Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him, or as flying in an airplane does to falling out of an airplane.

Although the one experience precedes the other, it in no way prepares you for it. During a partial eclipse the sky does not darken—not even when 94 percent of the sun is hidden.”

But when the clouds rolled in just before the eclipse started and the rain began to fall, my heart sank all the way down. The total eclipse was already lost to me and now we wouldn’t even get a partial?

Oh no sir.

I convinced my family to jump in the car and head south. Follow that patch of blue sky! With my sister-in-law and her family behind us and another friend and her daughter behind them, we rode down the highway three cars deep in the yellow, fading light.

Ten minutes out of town, we made it to sunlight, pulled over in a gas station parking lot and yanked out our glasses.

During a partial solar eclipse back in tenth grade, our Spanish teacher let us go outside but warned us to not dare look up, so this was my first time seeing an eclipse with my own eyes through glasses.

And still, it was surprising to see. Oh, they’re right. It really is happening.

We shared our glasses and squeals of delight, and decided to find a better place to watch the whole thing. We hopped back in the cars and found a patch of sunny grass a bit down the road, a line of cars already stopped, all eyes trained on the sky.

Just as it should be.

Watching the whole thing unfold was a gift.

And even though it never got dark, it did get dim, a yellow I’ve not quite seen before. We felt the temperature drop and kept blinking our eyes, adjusting to the strange light spilling onto the world.

The darkening was only gradual for those of us standing beneath the 94% partial eclipse. And that was all we got – a gradual dimness giving way to a gradual light.

This time, we take the show we got. And though it wasn’t totality, it still happened.

I try to imagine in my mind what it was like for those of you in the path of totality, close my eyes and try to give life to what I’ve read and the photos I’ve seen.

I’ve watched countless videos online, but everyone says there’s no way to capture it with a camera. I know you have to be there to know what it’s like and I kind of love that about it.

Turns out God still makes things we can’t capture on Instagram. How about that?

Because even if we weren’t able to see it with our very own two eyes, just the fact that it happens at all is a humbling experience.

There was no delay and no hurry.

There was no celebrity who could outshine it, no amount of money that could control it, no power that could stop it, and no politician who could take credit for it.

No one could vote for or against.

We could only bear witness.

For a few hours on a Monday in August, that’s what we did here in the United States and I just loved it. But I have to admit, I’m sad to have missed the total eclipse.

It feels silly and childish to admit, but there it is.

For me this week, the disappointment is real, but the deeper question is why. It’s one thing to admit when we feel let down, but it’s another to let our disappointment lead us to our center and enter further fellowship with God.

I’m learning not to discount or throw away those times when I feel left out or let down. So I took some time this week to consider the question beneath the question.

For those of you into personality typing systems, I’m an enneagram four and an INFJ on the Meyers-Briggs, so I live in a world full of meaning, connection, and possibility. I pay attention and intuit what’s going on beneath the surface of things. I value beauty and wonder and at my best, I have the ability to take an experience and put it into language the soul can understand, process, and apply.

But the shadow side of all of that goodness is I also have a tendency to be dramatic, self-obsessed, full of shame, and a stubborn belief in the false narrative in my head that I’m missing something vital I need for life.

And worse, everyone else has it.

And oh yeah, they’re all in on the secret and I’m the punchline.

It’s dark and weird and self-indlugent, but missing that path of totality somehow touched on that for me. As I’ve thought about it, I realize that creation is one way I experience God and understand life. And missing that cool experience felt a bit like God passed by in the world and I was on the wrong end of I-85.

That isn’t true, of course. But that’s where the disappointment comes from. Creation and all of the mysterious beauty within it is life-giving. While it isn’t healthy to demand all our experiences be life-giving, it’s important to pay attention to them when we recognize them. I don’t think we do that enough.

But here’s something I’m loving: watching all the videos online of people who were in the path. I cannot get enough! It touches me to my core to see everyone respond the same way no matter your gender, age, race or status.

If you’re feeling a little sad over missing the total eclipse, it could help to ask yourself why.

As for me, I’ve been reminded that God is with me, even in this small disappointment. He’s always inviting us deeper in and further on, willing to let even the silliest things draw us closer to him.

And while I’ve always known I love the sky and the light and shadows that dance above us everyday, now I’m taking it all a bit more to heart, making a list of things I’d still like to see simply because they bring me joy.

Next time our country experiences a total eclipse, I’m planning to get myself and my people to the path of totality. We’ll save our approved glasses, take our colanders to look at the shadow bands in dappled light, and hope for a clear day in Indiana in April 2024.

Want help to discern what is life-giving in your own life?

This week’s episode of my podcast The Next Right Thing could help you do just that.